Jeff Poor

Throughout the rise of the Tea Party, there seemed to be an effort by some media outlets to marginalize the message of the conservative movement by portraying rally attendees in the worst possible light – singling out protesters with Nazi or racist signs and suggesting that was indicative of what the whole movement was about.

However, the cast on Monday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC made an interesting observation — the signs being held by pro-union protesters in Madison, Wisc. have similar imagery yet they have not become the focus of those same media outlets that were critical of the Tea Party.

“Which I guess a Tea Party member would tell you if a Tea Party person held up with one of those signs with 300,000 people in the audience, it would be on a loop on every nightly news cast,” “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said.

“I think that’s a fair point,” co-host Mika Brzezinski added.

Watch:

However, journalist Carl Bernstein preferred to focus on Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for promoting what he sees as demagoguery.

“This is real demagoguery also that this governor is involved — is starting to promote,” Bernstein said. “It’s not a serious debate.”

But the consensus on the show seemed to be that there is a liberal media bias at work in this case.

“They sure as hell saw them a lot during the Tea Party protests,” Scarborough said. “You get one guy who escaped a mental institution, put up a sign and it was on the front page of the New York [Times] — seriously, why haven’t we seen those signs before now? It’s liberal media bias.”

Halparin and Barnicle admit there’s a “liberal media bias”? Never thought I’d see the day. Will Media Matters run the clip mocking them? Don’t think so.

polly tick

The MSM (and Obama) have more respect for the Muslim Brotherhood than they do the Tea Party people.

Tess_Comments

What happened to investigating and then reporting events and issues?
When did the journalists’ professional “code of ethics” deteriorate for many?
It is time to return to truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability.
It seems that more and more journalists are sacrificing accuracy and privacy in order to boost ratings.

jmk1502

Right. We need to watch the neutral “Fair and Balanced” Fox News. Because we all know there’s no bias there..

thephranc

Nice strawman.

pitboss711

Yes, the truth is unbiased.

polly tick

jmk1502!! You’re back! I’ve been worried, no one’s heard from you after WMD dropped some truth bombs on you the other day. Guess you were unable to respond, so you decided to QUIT? BTW, this article is not about Fox News. It’s about “Morning Joe” on PMSNBC. Everyone understands your simplistic view of things: GOP evil, Fox News evil, Limbaugh evil, etc, yawn, etc. Now, try to stay on topic, and see if you can contribute an original thought, OK? Also, if you would like to thank WMD for schooling you, here’s the link:

Since you chose to bring Fox News out of the thin air, and into this discussion, would you like to compare and contrast the number of liberal contributors on Fox vs the number of conservative contributors on ANY OTHER news channel? I doubt it, b/c liberalism requires ignoring math, +/or correct use of the english language, +/or reality. Now that I think about it, I would not be surprised if there are more libs on Fox than there are conservatives on all the lib channels combined.

SCGirl

Without a doubt the “media” are very much aware of their bias. IMO. ..They are also aware that this same bias has caused their ratings and viewership to just about disappear. They are very much aware their viewership is made up of those individuals who share that bias and it is a small but very loud and opinionated segment of the population. So small that their sponsors are spending more money on those programs that have the higher ratings and portion of the “uninformed and unintelligent” segment of the population.

I would hazard that Morning Joe is trying to improve his ratings by trying to appeal to his lost viewers. Unfortunately for him, most aren’t going to buy into the attempt to diversify.

Just take a look at the obvious efforts of A. Huffington to develop an alternative media domain that supposedly will have a more diverse group of journalists in order to attract a wider audience. Good luck there too.

lukuj

Wow! The man has an instant grasp of the obvious. Am I supposed to be impressed that he just noticed what those with even half a brain in their heads have known all along?

sooner77

The Democrats are about to wet their pants over Wisconsin. They know if they lose this one they have taken a major league hit. Unions like SEIU are their financial backbone. The Republicans smell blood and I say make like Jaws and finish them off.